Premier Doug Ford has sent the ministers in his cabinet new mandate letters, and like his first ones they won't be made public, according to two sources close to the government.

Mandate letters typically lay out a premier's assignments for a minister. They're usually assigned at the start of a new government or following a period of prorogation — like is the case presently in Ontario.

Governments in Canada at the federal and provincial level usually publish ministers' mandate letters. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government, for example, published the letters he sent to the members of his cabinet on his website.

The Ford government has not followed that tradition.

It's also shielded them from release using protections under Ontario's Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, which allow the government to protect documents that "would reveal the substance of deliberations of the executive council," meaning Ford and his ministers.

Media groups, including the Canadian Association of Journalists, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression and News Media Canada, are in a several-year court battle with the government over it blocking the release of the letters. That fight reached the Ontario Court of Appeal in September, where the Attorney General of Ontario's counsel, Judie Im, argued that Ford's letters are unlike other governments', and weren't written to be published.

The new letters should chart the course for what the heads of the Ontario government's ministries will try to accomplish between now and June's election.

A spokesperson for the premier's office would not confirm that new letters had been issued to ministers.

A different government source said that he was of the understanding that they were "expected imminently" after the legislature returned to sitting.

iPolitics has not named sources who shared what they knew about the mandate letters because they were not supposed to speak about that information.

With files from David Hains

Ford issues new mandate letters, which won’t be published: sources

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